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Alexis Hall was born in the early 1980s and still thinks the twenty-first century is the future. To this day, he feels cheated that he lived through a fin de siècle but inexplicably failed to drink a single glass of absinthe, dance with a single courtesan, or stay in a single garret.

He did the Oxbridge thing some time in the 2000s and failed to learn anything of substance. He has had many jobs, including ice cream maker, fortune teller, lab technician, and professional gambler. He was fired from most of them.

He can neither cook nor sing, but he can handle a seventeenth century smallsword, punts from the proper end, and knows how to hotwire a car.

He lives in southeast England, with no cats and no children, and fully intends to keep it that way.

If he was a pony, he would look like this.

If you would like more information about Alexis Hall you can follow his many social media accounts or sign up for his newsletter. If you would like him to stop talking in the third person, here are some links to blog posts and interviews he … I … oh God I’m really confused now … have done about various books and aspects of writing:

Social Media, Mary & Me

I’m around on various social media platforms, most regularly on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I also have a wonderful assistant called Mary, who keeps me organised and forces me to do promotion. You can email her at mary(at)quicunquevult(dot)com.

You can also contact me directly at ajh(at)quicunquevult(dot)com. I always love hearing from readers.

Alternatively, you can always chat to me here on my blog or sign up for my newsletter.

And, finally, I have undertaken a slightly peculiar project called Alexis Crossing, which you can sign up and receive a hand written letter from me at some point in the, well, fairly distant future. You can read about it here.

Frequently Asked Questions

I get asked questions occasionally. Here are some of the answers to some of them.

About Me

Is Alexis Hall your real name?

Nope, it’s a pseudonym. I have a day job that I love very much, but it’s not compatible with writing queer romance.

Isn’t Alexis kind of a girly name?

It depends where you’re from. In Eastern Europe and the UK it’s applied liberally to a wide variety of people.

In America, so am I told, it’s a girl name for girls. But I’ve long since got past the developmental stage of believing girls have the lurgy, so I don’t mind.

How do you take care of your hair?

I wash it every day and ignore it the rest of the time

Why do you talk so fast?

Because I’m horrendously self-conscious.

Quicunque Whu?

Quicunque vult salvus esse is the opening of the Athanasian Creed, roughly translated as ‘whoever wants to be saved’. The Creed itself is often known by its opening words quicunque vult or “whoever wants to.” Which naturally became early 19th century slang for prostitute. I just think it’s an amazing little piece of linguistic mischief and encompasses rather a lot of my favourite things (blasphemy, language, sex, history). I am not, however, at this juncture interested in exchanging sex for money so it’s probably a somewhat misleading name for my website. But I prefer to see it as a kind of philosophy about living, writing and reading. My books, and this site, are here for whoever wants to.

What is this Alexis Crossing thing and is it still happening?

You can read all about Alexis Crossing here. But, in short, it’s a scheme whereby you can sign up and receive a hand written letter from me at some point in the future. And it is definitely still happening. I usually send out a couple of letters of month so if you sign up there is a high probability you will get yours before one of us dies. Yay!

About Writing in General

What are you working on at the moment?

It’s a secret. Seriously, I’m not trying to be a coquette here, but I’m very nervous about talking about things before they’re done. Also you spend a lot of time bigging up this amazing lesbian space opera you’re working on, and then you can’t finish it or sell it, you end up looking like a bit of a knob.

What’s this Spires thing?

My feeling is that even contemporary-set romance stories to an extent take place in imagined worlds. So even though they’re not direct sequels to each other, my contemporary romances often have overlapping characters, ideas and settings. Spires is how I refer to this collection of thematically linked but otherwise standalone stories. Currently, they’re Glitterland, Waiting for the Flood, For Real, and Pansies.

What’s with all the dialect?

Mostly, I’m just very interested in language. I also have a real problem with prevailing attitudes to non-standard dialects, at least in my country. In many circles it’s actively socially prestigious to be ignorant of the many ways in which English can be spoken and that profoundly offends me. So something I try to do in my writing is to reflect the diversity of spoken English.

Are you going to write any more about couple [x]

Probably not. Without wishing to sound dickish, I tend to tell the story I want to tell in the book I tell it in and, unless I’m doing something artsy-fartsy and deliberately weird, that means I’ve usually got a couple to the place I want them to be in, well, the novel about them. And obviously this varies a lot from couple to couple: some people I leave getting married and others I leave kissing in the rain and it’s kind of important to me that both are valid endings to a romance.

What’s your stance on fanfic?

From a purely legal perspective, I should probably highlight that I retain full derivative works rights over all of my material. But, having said that, I’m actually a big supporter of fanfic as a valuable and creative means of engaging with the text. So you can absolutely write fanfic based on my stuff without fear of being sued or being asked to cease and desist.

Will you write a blog post / interview for me?

How do you respond to reviews of your work?

Basically, I don’t. I am very grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read and review my work (whether you liked it or not) but reviews are for readers, not writers. I will never engage with readers on reviews of my books or discussion threads about my books unless explicitly invited to do – and even then I’d be terrified of potentially closing down the conversation. If you want to talk to me about my work, you’re very welcome to contact me at ajh(at)quicunquevult(dot)com.

Would you like your work translated into language [x]?

That’d be super cool but translation are usually held by the publisher so you’ll have to contact them.

Is any of your work available in audio?

How awesome of you to ask! Yes it is and you can find out all about it by going to this page.

About the Kate Kane series

When is book 3 coming out?

When I can find a publisher for it.

Why does Kate define as a lesbian, not a bisexual?

Because she does not currently fancy men at all in any way. My experience is that quite a lot of gay people have heterosexual relationships at some point because there’s an awful lot of social pressure to do, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re all secretly bisexual. Of course, that’s problematic because it supports this idea that bisexuality doesn’t exist or is somehow cheating. Basically it’s complicated and, in this specific instance, I came down on the side of a homosexual character who has had one arguably heterosexual experience rather than a bisexual character, but I think either would have been a valid call to make.

Did you really give Kate purple eyes?”

Yes, it’s sort of meant to be ironic. The idea behind the books is that Kate is the slightly Mary Sue heroine of a YA romance who has since grown up. Part of the inspiration for the character, in fact, was that I’ve always wanted to know what happens to those girl after the book ends, because there’ll come a point when you’re 25 and your boyfriend is still a 17 year old vampire.

About Glitterland

Will Niall get his own book?

Um. Maybe. I hope so. I know what it would involve, but again, my dance card is very full so it’s just a question of putting aside the time to write it and negotiating something with the publisher to publish it.

Will Glitterland ever be available as an audiobook?

Will you write any more about Ash and Darian?

There’s a sort of epilogue-type thing called Glitterland: Aftermath which you can get for free. But other than that I don’t have plans to re-visit Ash and Darian any time soon, I’m afraid.

About the ProsperityVerse

Will there be any more books or stories set in the world?

Again, it’s a maybe. I would like to continue the adventures of Captain England, but it depends on my time and my publisher’s inclination. Apparently steampunk is a difficult niche to market.

About For Real

Will Jasper get his own book?

It’s sort of the same situation as it is with Niall. There is, however, a short story from Jasper’s perspective that you can get for free by subscribing to my newsletter (which you can then unsubscribe from again immediately if you want!).